NATIONAL CHILDHOOD OBESITY AWARENESS MONTH

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

"ONLY TOGETHER CAN WE REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE."

                                         

 -- Blake Mallon, Project 10 Kids

This week Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. kicks off a new nutrition education afterschool program.   Remember last week’s column about superfoods?  We will be featuring those foods and others as we create a new generation of NUTRITION DETECTIVES.  For the next 6 weeks, we will be sharing highlights from the program.  If you have ideas for what you would want your own kids to learn, let us know!  

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September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.  One in three kids in America is overweight or obese.  Everywhere I look, I see kids of all ages at risk for obesity-related diseases like diabetes and sleep apnea.  Childhood obesity is not the kids’ problem – it is our problem.  As parents, as teachers, as adults who run afterschool programs, as business owners who offer health care benefits for dependents, we all have a responsibility to improve our own health literacy and awareness about what foods to put on our own plate. 

What's YOUR favorite veggie?

Stuffed portobello mushrooms (with whole grain coucous, spinach and yellow peppers)
 from the GROWING HEALTHY KIDS' Recipe Collection

This month make a personal commitment to start looking at your own shopping cart and make at least half of your food purchases vegetables and fruits. As you and your family plan your dinner menus, plan for at least half of your plates to be filled with vegetables and fruits.  Make the commitment to eat more of the good foods (see last week’s column: "Ten Foods to Eat More of") and less of the bad foods (like white flour, Pop Tarts, and sodas).  If every parent in America’s makes this simple commitment, then it is possible that we will not need to have a National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month. 

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.